Senior Officers

The American National Savings Association announces that two Eldersburg residents have been elected senior officers by the association's board of directors.Russell J. Grimes Jr. and Timothy C. Hastings were elected vice presidents of the $406 million institution.Grimes began his career with American National in 1978, serving as controller since 1987. Hastings joined the association in 1987 and is the manager of the Loan Service Department.

The commander of criminal investigations for the Carroll County Sheriff's Office was charged with misconduct in office Wednesday and resigned, following an investigation that led county prosecutors to drop charges in two high-profile killings. The Office of the State Prosecutor, which investigates public corruption and other crimes, alleged Wednesday that Maj. Nicholas Plazio made false statements to prosecutors and in court in connection with the fatal 2010 stabbing of 25-year-old Jeremiah P. DeMario.

OLOVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina -- Staff Sgt. Paul Correale noticed the elderly woman in black with the toddler when the two turned to watch his patrol from 50 feet or so away. The child waved a tiny, pink-mittened hand in greeting.The sergeant, 34, is a specialist in armed reconnaissance who describes what his training entailed this way: "They tell us to go out and get information on the enemy so the main force can kill them."And that is what he is expected to do in Bosnia if the NATO-led peacekeeping mission deteriorates into combat.

A Baltimore County developer said he has abandoned pursuit of building "big box" stores at the site of the North Point Government Center in Dundalk and moving those offices to the site of a nearby former whiskey distillery that he owns. John Vontran of Perry Hall said this week that he had dropped the idea, which received mixed reviews in the community and no public backing from county officials, including the district councilman. "It was just an idea," Vontran said after a public hearing at Patapsco High School at which opponents outnumbered supporters of his remaining project: a mix of senior housing and offices at the old Joseph E. Seagram & Sons property on Sollers Point Road in Dundalk.

With the graduation Wednesday of the Class of 1994, the U.S. Navy and the Naval Academy hope to end the saga involving honor code violations that has enveloped the academy and the Class of 1994 for the last 18 months.Top Navy officials are undertaking steps to prevent future honor code violations, but the resolution does not start in Annapolis -- it starts with the top ranks of the Navy.When the inspector general states that the senior officers in charge did not want to "get to the bottom" of the scandal that involved students cheating on an electrical engineering exam, that demonstrates a breakdown at the top, not the bottom.

WASHINGTON -- Two influential legislators who have been briefed on the U.S. military's investigation into the deaths of 24 unarmed Iraqi civilians said yesterday that they suspect that senior officers were involved in covering up evidence of war crimes by the Marine unit involved. Neither lawmaker - Sen. John W. Warner, a Virginia Republican and chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, and Rep. John P. Murtha, a Pennsylvania Democrat and former Marine and a leading authority on military issues - said he had direct evidence of top officers trying to suppress information.

WASHINGTON -- The chaplain of the Marine Corps has distributed to senior military officers a position paper that says homosexuals in the armed forces are a "physical and psychological" threat to other troops.The six-page paper, which has won praise from the Marines' top general, staunchly defends the armed forces' ban on gay men and lesbians, arguing that repealing the prohibition would hurt recruiting, undermine morale and increase the number of AIDS cases in the military."In the unique, intensely close environment of the military, homosexual conduct can threaten the lives, including the physical (e.g.

WASHINGTON -- The colonel who steered the Marine Corps' war-fighting strategy away from frontal assaults and toward the speed and maneuvering that marked Operation Desert Storm has been forced into early retirement.Col. Mike Wiley, 51, was passed over for promotion to general on March 19. In the military, this means mandatory retirement. His dismissal takes effect in October.Some officers say they fear that the dismissal of Colonel Wiley may mean a reversion to old-fashioned thinking and could send a message to other young officers that innovative ideas do not promote careers.

SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador -- A confidential list o Salvadoran officers to be purged from their military posts next month for reasons including human rights violations includes the defense minister, his deputy minister and more than 110 officers, according to people familiar with the list.The purge orders, seen as one of the most serious tests of civilian authority over the armed forces, have raised tensions to a new level here as a series of important deadlines, established in the peace accord reached last year, slip by."

WASHINGTON -- Documenting a broad and deepening U.S. failure in Iraq after more than three years of war and 2,900 American dead, the long-awaited Baker-Hamilton report lays out a new course that would require a large U.S. military presence there for years, with prospects for continuing American casualties. Rejecting the idea of a speedy withdrawal of U.S. troops, the bipartisan group of 10 senior Washington insiders chaired by former Secretary of State James A. Baker III and former Democratic Rep. Lee H. Hamilton said that such a move would risk chaos in Iraq and could ignite a broader war in the region.

Note: This blog post should have made it clear that Hite has been named interim chief until a final selection is made. Rick Hite spent more than three decades in the Baltimore Police Department, and many years as the voice of an association of black officers. Now, he has his own department to run, named chief of the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department . He takes over after a scandal -- the former chief resigned on Tuesday after a blood sample taken from a suspended cop was mishandled . While in Baltimore, Hite was an outspoken advocate not only of his colleagues but of the city's youth.

ROCHESTER, N.Y. -- John Batiste has traveled a long way in the past four years, from commanding the 1st Infantry Division in Iraq to quitting the Army after three decades in uniform, and now, from his new life overseeing a steel factory here, to openly challenging President Bush on his management of the war. "Mr. President, you did not listen," Batiste says in new television advertisements being broadcast in Republican congressional districts as part...

WASHINGTON -- Documenting a broad and deepening U.S. failure in Iraq after more than three years of war and 2,900 American dead, the long-awaited Baker-Hamilton report lays out a new course that would require a large U.S. military presence there for years, with prospects for continuing American casualties. Rejecting the idea of a speedy withdrawal of U.S. troops, the bipartisan group of 10 senior Washington insiders chaired by former Secretary of State James A. Baker III and former Democratic Rep. Lee H. Hamilton said that such a move would risk chaos in Iraq and could ignite a broader war in the region.

WASHINGTON -- Two influential legislators who have been briefed on the U.S. military's investigation into the deaths of 24 unarmed Iraqi civilians said yesterday that they suspect that senior officers were involved in covering up evidence of war crimes by the Marine unit involved. Neither lawmaker - Sen. John W. Warner, a Virginia Republican and chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, and Rep. John P. Murtha, a Pennsylvania Democrat and former Marine and a leading authority on military issues - said he had direct evidence of top officers trying to suppress information.

Hoping to entice veteran police officers to remain longer, Howard County is looking into joining other area governments that have adopted a deferred pension deal that kisses retiring officers goodbye with a big wad of cash. "We all compete in this same region. It helps us plan," said Howard police Chief Wayne Livesay, a 32-year veteran who explained that the pension plan would allow him to know which senior officers will remain and for how long. "If I have someone with 25 years, I know I've got them for the next three or four years," he said.

Hoping to entice veteran police officers to remain longer, Howard County is planning to join other area governments that have adopted a deferred pension deal that kisses retiring officers goodbye with a big wad of cash. "We all compete in this same region. It helps us plan," said Howard police chief Wayne Livesay, a 32-year veteran who explained that the pension plan would allow him to know which senior officers would remain and for how long. "If I have someone with 25 years, I know I've got them for the next three or four years," he said.

ROCHESTER, N.Y. -- John Batiste has traveled a long way in the past four years, from commanding the 1st Infantry Division in Iraq to quitting the Army after three decades in uniform, and now, from his new life overseeing a steel factory here, to openly challenging President Bush on his management of the war. "Mr. President, you did not listen," Batiste says in new television advertisements being broadcast in Republican congressional districts as part...

The Baltimore Fraternal Order of Police estimates that the city could lose up to 350 of its most senior officers -- 11 percent of its force -- starting in January when a three-year pension incentive plan expires.City Board of Estimates members accepted yesterday a $15.8 million, three-year federal grant to hire and train 140 officers, which Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke hopes would help to soften the blow of any exodus because of the pension extension expiration.Baltimore instituted the Deferred Retirement Option Plan in 1996 to try to keep officers with more than 20 years of experience.

WASHINGTON - Army plans for Iraq call for keeping about 100,000 U.S. troops there through March 2006, a senior Army officer said yesterday. The plans reflect the concerns of senior commanders that stabilizing Iraq could be more difficult than originally planned. The officer, who insisted on anonymity, warned that maintaining a force of that size in Iraq beyond then would cause the Army to "really start to feel the pain" from stresses on overtaxed active-duty soldiers as well as Reserve and National Guard troops.

THE HAGUE, Netherlands - Eight years after the massacre of more than 7,000 Bosnians, doubts have lingered about the degree to which the killings were coldly planned or were improvised in chaos. Most of those killed were unarmed prisoners, boys and men, shot in groups, or sometimes one by one. Among the executioners, only a few foot soldiers have talked about the events that turned Srebrenica - its name means the "place of silver" - into a symbol of a modern European nightmare. No architect of the crime has ever explained in public what was in the killers' minds, or what made them believe that the murderous frenzy was acceptable to their society and to their leaders.